Obama's Insane Illegal Immigration Policy

The flood of children coming to the United States is a much worse and more alarming story than you might imagine.

This disaster is a direct result of deliberate Obama administration policy that encourages illegal immigration. In August 2012 the administration announced, basically, that it would not deport most children who come to the United States illegally.

By any reasonable standard, the Obama policy is insane and the results were predictable. This is a humanitarian crisis that the President himself created.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte and the House Subcommittee on Immigration and Border Security held a hearing this week which made vividly clear just how deliberate and how crazy this policy is and how disastrous its results are going to be--for the United States as well as for the children who are leaving their parents and dangerously entering the country on their own.

It is clear the Obama administration policies are insane if their goals are really to stop illegal immigration and honest, effective border control.

Instead, it appears to be a deliberate policy of maximizing the number of illegal immigrants allowed to stay in the United States. Any suggestion that these are mostly political refugees is a lie.

A May 28, 2014, Rio Grande Valley (RGV) Sector Intelligence Report tells a story that is strikingly different than the claimed humanitarian crisis the administration paints as responsible for the surge. The report summarized interviews conducted with hundreds of apprehended Central Americans minors and quite frankly paints a very different picture of the situation.

According to the report, when these individuals were asked why they made the journey to the United States, approximately 95% indicated that the main reason was to take advantage of the “new” U.S. “law” that grants a “free pass” or permit (referred to as “permisos”) being issued by the U.S. government to women traveling with minors and unaccompanied alien minors. While no new law has been enacted, the truth is that this administration has dramatically altered immigration enforcement policies. The timing of the change in policies correlates closely with the steep uptick of individuals showing up at the border. Apparently, word has gotten out that once encountered by Border Patrol agents and processed, thanks to this Administration’s lax enforcement policies, one will likely never be removed.

In addition to simply not pursuing removable aliens, DHS has been granting hundreds of thousands of these individuals administrative legalization and work authorization. DHS does this under many guises, invoking doctrines with esoteric names such as “deferred action” and “parole-in-place”. The net effect of these policies has been described by former ICE Acting Director John Sandweg -- “If you are a run-of-the mill immigrant here illegally, your odds of getting deported are close to zero . . . .” Apparently, those arriving at our borders now know this.

Indeed, Father Heyman Vazquez, the director of a migrant shelter in Mexico, told news outlets that children and families are encouraged to cross into the U.S. illegally because they think they will be given amnesty. Vazquez said, "I remember a little boy of 9 years old and I asked if he was going to go meet someone and he told me ‘No, I’m just going to hand myself over because I hear they help kids." In addition, like so many others across Central America, Robin Tulio, a 13-year-old, said his mother believed that the Obama Administration had quietly changed its policy regarding unaccompanied minors, and that if he made it across, he would have a better shot at staying. In the meantime, Central American media touts an open door to the U.S. for minors and families.

If you have any doubt consider that the Obama administration is deliberately encouraging this surge in illegal immigration, consider that instead of focusing on controlling the border and stopping people from entering illegally, we now have our government using our tax money to hire "escort services for unaccompanied alien children."

You may think I am making this up, but you can see the actual Homeland Security solicitation here. It’s pretty clear from the document that the federal government intends to take care large numbers of children who enter the country illegally. It certainly explains the 2,232 percent increase in unaccompanied minors crossing the border since 2009.

This is truly madness. And it is terrible for the children involved, who will be separated from their families and vulnerable to all sorts of threats.

Senators John Cornyn and Marco Rubio this morning introduced a resolution calling on President Obama to state publicly that new unaccompanied minors illegally crossing the borders will not be eligible for his “deferred action” from immigration law. Such a statement from the President might begin to ease this extraordinary humanitarian crisis he created.

Call your representatives and senators and demand that they change the law and get the border genuinely under control.